Bill Fishbein

Founder and Executive Director

Bill Fishbein began his journey in specialty coffee in 1978. On a shoestring loan from a friend, he started Coffee Exchange in 1984 in Providence, RI.

In 1988, Bill traveled to Guatemala to meet coffee farmers for the first time. He confronted up close and personal the deep poverty at origin, and faced the reality that his income was directly related to the unrelenting struggle faced by small-scale coffee-farming families. Bill decided that he could not sell another pound of coffee without doing something to help coffee producers and their families.

In 1988, along with David Abedon, and Dean Cycon, Bill started Coffee Kids, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping coffee producers improve their lives. The non-profit was funded by coffee roasters, retailers, wholesalers and others in the specialty coffee trade. Coffee Kids was the first non-profit to work exclusively on behalf of small-scale coffee farmers, and worked extensively throughout Central America.

In 2008 Bill left Coffee Kids to make room for a younger generation of leadership, and created The Coffee Trust to continue his work on behalf of small-scale coffee farmers and their families. Since then, The Coffee Trust has supported self-managed community development working almost exclusively in San Gaspar Chajul, Guatemala alongside the fair trade, organic coffee producers of Asociación Chajulense.

Because of his innovative and grassroots approach to development and sustainability, he was featured in the PBS documentary, The Visionaries, and was later presented with the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s highest honor, The SCAA Lifetime Achievement Award.

Bill@thecoffeetrust.org